Zealot web-owner bans members

CRACKDOWN!

By Edgar Hall, Political Editor
WHEN crusading Conservative Jim Robinson first set up Free Republic six years ago, he had high hopes for his message board baby. It wouldn't be like all the other political forums he posted on, which regularly denied him free speech. Oh no, Siree!

His forum, to borrow from the mission statement on the homepage, would "roll back decades of governmental largesse, root out political fraud and corruption and champion causes which further conservatism in America". If posters wanted to sound off against the government, that was just fine with Jim. And if one of those posters happened to believe George W Bush was a "cokehead felon ", good luck to him!

That was six years ago.

In 2003, things are rather different at the Fresno-based Free Republic and the poster who trashed Dubya would now be banned instantly. Ironically, that poster was... Jim Robinson himself. In 1999, he incensed his readers by making the following post:

To: Freedom Wins

So, it doesn't matter if he [Bush] snorted coke as a youth? It was a long time ago, a youthful in-discretion? Kinda like people who frequented sneakeasies during prohibition? Kind of a cute story, eh? Well, how about all the people whose lives have been destroyed by being arrested for the felony of drug possession? What about the millions of people who are rotting away in your filthy drug infested prisons at this very moment?

Well, by God, if you people insist on electing another cokehead as President, you damned well better throw open all the prison cell doors and free every man, woman, and child you're holding on drug charges. And if you're gonna elect another drug felon as President, you'd better rescind each and every one of your unconstitutional drug laws now on the books, including all of your unconstitutional search and seizure laws, and your asset forfeiture laws, and your laws that enable your unconstitutional snooping into our bank accounts and cash transactions. Well, I don't know whether to laugh or cry. You people are sick! Conservatives my ass. You people are nothing but a bunch of non-thinking hypocrits! You're a shame and a disgrace to the Republic!

And, I, for one, am tired of taking orders from cokeheads and felons! Elect another one and I'll tell you what. I'll be ready for war! It'll be time to take up arms and run the filthy lying bastards out!

Posted on 08/20/1999 03:19:31 PDT by Jim Robinson

Nowadays such attacks on Dubya are mightily unwelcome - don't you know there's a war on? - and a new breed of "Texas Chainsaw" moderators has instructions to stamp down on any insubordination.

Appalled at the change in direction, many of Jim's closest followers have predictably deserted FR in protest - followers like Joe Phillips, Robinson's friend and chief fundraiser, who blames head moderator "Ms Anti Feminazi" for the change in outlook. After longtime poster "Askel5" was zapped last month for questioning Rumsfeld's integrity, Phillips blasted: "I tried and tried to get JR to understand that banning folks like "Askel5" was dumbing down the forum.

"But to my knowledge the only one he listens to is dumbass "MAF", the leader of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre gang. I have been consistantly amazed that the five or six good moderators have stayed on with this mental midget dips**t."

In fact, the banning of "Askel5" had little or nothing to do with "MAF". It was wholly Robinson's decision and the reason he gave may have suggested he could give any self-respecting "mental midget" a run for his money. When "Askel5" tried to reply to some fairly hostile flamebaiting, she received the blunt message, "Your posting privilege has been revoked. Reason: Saddam apologist."

So are the moderators really out of control or is it perhaps Jim who needs to take a break? "Jim calls the shots," insists one of the mods, who agreed to talk to us under condition of anonymity. "Sure, we get a little power-crazed from time to time and suspend a few folks. But if we over-step the mark, these people are back posting within days. Jim oversees everything. He isn't some bewildered old man who doesn't know what's going on - he reads the forum religiously.

"I don't know about the others but I get a little fed up with the abuse we get. It's an unpaid job on one of the busiest political forums there is. You see all these breakaway forums setting up and they all swear they won't go the same way as Free Republic. Yet within months they are banning posters willy-nilly."

But a former moderator sees things rather differently, claiming her successors actually get a kick out of banning people's accounts. Poster "Mercuria", who was once a moderator and member of the elite Free Republic Advisory Board, insists: "The mods and Jim (whom I'm sure is ALSO a mod) certainly chortle enough with their ZAPS and ZOTS.

"They've made no secret that they enjoy being able to shut down the debate of anyone who disagrees with them, no matter how reasonable the dissenters are being. They think all this is cute. Gives them that big Ego Rush of Belonging they obviously can't get off-line."

One such dissenter was Christopher Knight, who also found himself out in the cold recently for not loving the "cokehead felon". This time the reason Jim gave wasn't "Saddam apologist" but instead "Liberal". Which he isn't, unlike Robinson who used to be a registered Democrat.

"I joined FR as "Darth Sidious" in January of 1999 because its overwhelming mission was restoring the rule of law to this land during Clinton's fiasco of an administration," explains Knight. "What happened to Free Republic was the sad old story of obsession: the site and its management became so obsessed with destroying an enemy, it became the enemy.

"There is no more free and earnest discussion on this site. Anger the Robinsons [Jim's son John is also involved in FR] or their gang of "moderators" and you get banned. Do something they particularly don't like and all your posts - years worth of them even - get obliterated down the "memory hole". You cease to exist on FR anymore... because there is no individuality where "the party" is concerned."

Robinson has since reactivated Knight's account but he has not posted there since his banning. And if Free Republic continues to resemble the online version of Orwell's 1984, he probably won't be back for a while.

As "Mercuria" says: "I'd always thought that being a conservative was about respecting independent thought and open debate - am I wrong?"

Apparently, she is wrong. "Independent thought and open debate" are no longer permissable at Free Republic - except maybe for that one little guy who thinks President Bush is a "cokehead felon".